


Natural Disasters

by PlushMon



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware, VenturianTale Characters (Web Series)
Genre: other characters and ships added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlushMon/pseuds/PlushMon
Summary: A large city destroying storm surrounded by clones cause The Science Team, the P.I.E team and many others to join forces to save themselves and the world.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. The Apartments

In the funny world referred to as simply “Gmod” many people live their daily lives in strangeness. Some unaware of the world they live in, some completely aware and taking advantage of such, others simply live. 

\- - - -

Gordon wakes with a crash coming from upstairs followed by yelling. He vaguely remembers he lives in an apartment with upstairs neighbors and attempts to sleep again, only to be kept awake by more noise coming from upstairs and decides to give up on sleep until it quiets down.

He checks the time on his alarm after he puts his glasses on: 3:56. He sighs and gets up, finding Benrey also awake and on the couch.

“Neighbors wake you up too?” Gordon asks them.

“I.. don’t think that's the neighbors.” Benry replies, looking up at he ceiling.

Before Gordon could respond with a “what??” there's another crash followed by more yelling. It’s more clear now and Gordon can make out what's being said, “Johnny, I TOLD you bringing the bubble blower would just make things worse!”

It’s definitely not the upstairs neighbor’s voice.

“Who the fuck is that??” Gordon stares up now too, like he could somehow see what's going on above them.

Benry shrugs “I dunno, but there's like, two johnnies and one is british.”

“How do you know that?” Gordon turns his attention back to his roommate.

Benrey makes a vague gesture back to the ceiling, where more clear yelling is heard, this time in a british accent “Sir, I thought the bubble blower would distract it!” followed by the original voice “well all it did is make it larger and angerier!”

“Y’know what? Fuck this. I'm gonna go see what's going on up there. You coming with?” Gordon looks at Benry still.

“Huh? Oh, yeah sure” Benrey gets up off the couch.

Gordon nods, throwing on clothes that aren’t just his pajamas to make him more presentable to whoever the “johnnies” were, despite the noise. Benrey waits at the door, apparently fine with just wearing his hat, hoodie, and pajama pants upstairs. 

They head out the door and climb the stairs, stopping at the door above theirs. For a moment Gordon feels nervous, what if whatever this thing the people up here seem to be fighting is just as bad as Black Mesa? He’s jumped out of his thoughts by some Sweet Voice from Benrey and knocks on the door.

There's a few more crashes and shouts before the door opens. A man in his late twenties wearing a worn down grey hoodie and a bag opens the door, he has his hood up shadowing his eyes, not unlike what Benrey looked like with his helmet on. “Hello, as you can see we’re a BIT busy” he gestures behind him. Inside the apartment looks like a battle ground. The furniture is torn and thrown around and the floor is charred, bubbles float around the room probably from the bubble blower mentioned. There's another person inside, attempting to fight something with a strangely colored flashlight. The thing he’s fighting resembles the pokemon Rhyhorn, but parts of it are see through, like it's a playermodel that wasn’t made quite right. It’s also incredibly large.

Gordon pauses a moment to look at the carnage “we just wanted to know what the fuck all the noise was.” He looks back at the man in the hoodie.

“Well,” He looks between Gordon and Benrey, a faint beeping is heard from inside his bag “I'm Johnny Ghost, Paranormal Investigator Extraordinaire, and this is my partner Johnny Toast.” He gestures to the other man fighting the Rhyhorn, who is now making roars which sound very much like a person. “We’re currently trying to fight a level 14 demon, one of which that only comes out at exactly 3:47 AM MST, we’ve managed to keep it out long enough.” 

Gordon nods like he understands a word of what he just said. Benry doesn’t reply for a moment, then states “why is your bag beeping?”

Johnny Ghost looks confused for a moment before seemingly understanding, he reaches into his bag and pulls out something that looks like a walkie talkie with some other pieces of metal taped to it. It’s beeping loudly “I don’t know why this is going off, this is for horrors, not demons.” Ghost mumbles.

“Oh!” Benrey perks up “I’m one of those!” 

“What?” Ghost looks at him in disbelief “but you look like a normal dude. Horrors are incomprehensible and well, horrible.”

“Well, ‘m not a dude. ‘M not human either” Benry replies.

“Trust me, he’s definitely a horror.” Gordon looks at Benry tiredly.

“You.. live with a horror?” Ghost looks at Gordon now.

“Yeah, me and my friends were involved with an accident that ripped into another dimension and we had to fight my friend here, he ended up living- I’m not sure if he even CAN die, but anyway he lives with me now. Are you going to be done here soon? people are trying to sleep.” Gordon answers tiredly.

Ghost pauses again, then his partner calls for help. He tells the two to wait there while he finishes up this mission.

Gordon doesn’t really feel like doing this at 4 AM but Benry seems somewhat excited about this. Maybe they’ll figure out exactly what Benrey is or something.

Gordon watches as the two Paranormal Investigators.. Kill?.. the Rhyhorn. It’s body disappears not too long after going limp. Gordon decides not to think about this too much. The Science Team always used to do the same afterall.

The two Investigators come back to the door after talking quietly for a moment. “So you mentioned a dimensional rift opening?” the British one asked, Gordon recalls that his name is Toast.

“Yeah uh, I’m not actually supposed to talk to people about it though? It’s like, classified. It was around 4 months ago though” Gordon replies.

Ghost nods “we did catch a spike in readings around four months ago, but those readings haven’t really gone down much” Ghost pauses for a moment before looking back to Benrey.  
“So you’re a horror, according to this anyway,” he holds up the detector which is still beeping. 

“What's a horror?” Benry responds. “Something that's completely incomprehensible and incredibly hard to kill” Ghost replies “so how are you able to keep a human form?”

They shrug “just can.”

“That’s not very helpful,” he replies. “Well you wanted to know,” “uh huh, “just can” is not an answer!”

Before the two could bicker onward they’re cut off by a phone ringing, Ghost brings a phone out of his bag and groans before handing it to Toast.

“Hello, Spooker? What’s the problem?” he talks into the phone.

Gordon is getting tired of standing here, clearly this is just a waste of time  
He was about to gesture to Benry that they should get going but he overhears something,

“Old men in white coats? Like the toilet toucher?” there's a pause while the other person replies “they look like einstein? And there's many of them? Alright, we’ll be on our way back in a bit.” there's another pause before Toast hangs up, handing the phone back to Ghost.

“Hey, wait what’s going on?” Gordon asks the two, suddenly feeling far more awake.

“There's a group of the same old man in a lab coat attacking Little Butts North Carolina.” Toast states. “Why do you ask, sir?”

“Well uh,” he glances at Benry who seems to be thinking the same thing judging by their current expression “that sounds extremely familiar. Uh, back in Black Mesa our friend Harold had like, 300 clones? And one of them was definitely evil, that description sounds alot like what he looked like in Black Mesa.” Gordon tells the two.

Ghost nods “hmm, maybe we could bring this “Harold” along to see if these things are his clones?”

“Well if it’s not then you just brought him all the way to North Carolina for no reason,” Gordon says “why not get the person who called out to send a picture of them?”

Ghost nods, although he looks a bit frustrated, he gets his phone out presumably to text the other person, Gordon thinks Toast called him “Spooker” these people have strange names.

After another uncomfortable silence Ghost shoves his phone in Gordon’s face. He backs up slightly to take a look at the screen. It appears to be taken from inside a window of a house, outside is a small neighborhood with a wild storm going on and many many blurry figures around, one of them fairly close to the camera, Gordon can make out that it’s definitely Dr. Coomer. Before Gordon could tell the Investigators this Benrey takes the phone shouting “let me see! Let me see!” This action instantly sets Ghost off to yell at Benry and attempt to get his phone back, Benrey holds the phone above his head, clearly stretching his arm out further considering they’re about the same height. 

Gordon sighs and steps over to the two, Toast seems just as tired about this fight too “Benrey, just give him his phone back.” “but I wanted to see the picture.” Benry whines “maybe he would’ve shown you if you didn’t take it, dude” Benrey shortens their arm again and hands the phone back, which Ghost swiftly takes out of their hand and walks back to his partner.

Ghost huffs before looking at Gordon again “so is it one of your friend’s clones?” he asks.

“Yes, I think so. The weird thing is he killed all his clones in Black Mesa…” Gordon answers, concern now evident in his expression. 

“Maybe the tear in dimensions opened up an alternate dimension where the clones lived.” Ghost responds, clearly thinking hard. “Well it seems like there's also a large storm going on.. Maybe it’s because of a portal storm, sir.” Toast looks over at Ghost, who immediately shoots up in fear at the mention “I sure hope not.” he sighs.

Gordons pretty lost at this point and Benry looks bored.  
“Okay, well- uh, I don’t think I ever got your names.” Ghost says.

“Uh, I’m Gordon Freeman and this is Benry.” Gordon says, gesturing towards Benrey who is now doing something on his phone.

“Alright, well Mr. Freeman do you think you can tell your friend, uh what was it? Harold about this. We’ll probably need his help considering there’s a LOT of his clones.” Ghost asks Gordon.

“Yeah, but chances are he’s going to want to bring the rest of us with him,” Gordon shrugs “we are a team afterall.” 

“That’ll be just fine, sir. We’ll probably need the help anyway” Toast smiles at Gordon, a contrast between Ghost who looks annoyed by the offer of that much help. Ghost shrugs “here, i’ll give you our card. Call us when your “team” is together so we can go back home and fix the problem.” Ghost digs a card out of his pocket and hands it to Gordon.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, Toast and I are going to get our pay for getting rid of the demon.” Ghost pushes past Benry, who doesn’t even react and Toast gives Gordon an apologetic look before following his partner. Gordon sighs and looks at Benry, who looks up from his phone.

“Looks like we gotta get The Science Team back together.”


	2. The Bunker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Science Team meets the P.I.E Team !

Gordon had decided to wait until the next day to call everyone, he needed to sleep if he was going to go fight another hoard of Coomer clones. Last time he had to fight them he was missing his arm and bleeding out, so hopefully this trip will go better.

Gordon would be worried about the fact he no longer has the HEV suit, but he’s fairly sure it won’t even matter. He doesn’t know why he thinks this either. Then again he’s 90% sure he died twice during Black Mesa and just came back like everyone else.

After Gordon wakes up a bit he calls Coomer first, informing him of the clone uprising in NC. Coomer seems excited to get back into battle, although he is also confused about there being more clones, considering he feels whole. He decides not to call Bubby and just asks Coomer to tell them about this, Coomer agrees.

He calls Tommy next, explaining the situation. 

“Oh! I think I know those guys, Gordon!” Tommy tells him.

“You do?” Gordon asks.

“Yeah uh, they have a tele-televisi- TV show!” Tommy replies.

“Oh, that’s nice, Tommy.”

They all agree to meet up with the two P.I.E members over by the airport. The only ones excited about this seems to be Tommy and Coomer. 

\- - - - -

Ghost wasn’t really sure what he was expecting when the team of five arrived at the airport. The two he met last night- the horror and the tired looking guy with one arm- were currently arguing about passports, apparently. Harold, the one whose clones were apparently having an uprising was currently charging over to greet him, behind him stood another old man who was fairly tall and wore glasses that made it so you couldn’t see their eyes. They look very unhappy to be here and honestly Ghost felt the same. The remaining member of this team was taller than the rest, he looked very cheerful, he wore a propeller cap and had glowing yellow eyes. For some reason Ghost can’t help but be reminded of Spooker.

Harold stands in front of Ghost, only a bit taller than Ghost but very intimidating, he looks at Ghost then Toast and smiles “hello, Johnnys!” 

“Hello, sir.” Toast replies. Ghost decides he doesn’t want to bother saying hello back. He leans past Harold to find, what was his name? Gordon. “So is this everyone?” Ghost asks, which snaps Gordon out of his argument with… Barney? That was it’s name, right? 

“Uh, yeah. Here let me introduce everyone” Gordon moves away from Barney and closer to the group. “I already told you about Harold, there’s his husband Bubby” he points at the other old man with the glasses, who huffs in response “and there's Tommy” the man in the propellor cap waves, “hi” Gordon looks over to Barney “and you already know Benrey.”

Oh, his name is Benry. Whatever, at least he didn’t say Barney out loud and embarrass himself.

Toast nods, “nice to meet you all”

“So you’re the two Ghost Hunter kids Harold was telling me about?” Bubby looks at Ghost and Toast.

“First of all we aren’t kids. Second, yeah. But we don’t hunt ghosts, we just help them.” Ghost replies, quickly deciding he no longer likes Bubby.

“That's pretty much the same thing.” Bubby crossed their arms.

“No it’s not!” Ghost is really getting heated up now.

Before Bubby could say something else to make Ghost want to attack him Tommy steps forward and speaks up, “hello, i’m a big fan of your show!” Tommy says, instantly distracting Ghost. Ghost stands upright, suddenly proud of himself again “oh! Thank you, Tommy. Glad to see a fan.”

Looking at Tommy up closer now he almost seems familiar, but he can’t really place why. Toast taps his shoulder “sir, I do believe the flight is soon, we should get going” Toast tells Ghost who nods in response. “So are you all ready to go get on the plane?” Ghost asks the group.

They all make some sort of noise of agreement and Ghost turns around to finally head inside. He can hear Gordon and Benrey’s argument return along with other conversation between the others, including Toast.

This is going to be a long few days, Ghost decides.

\- - - -

The plane ride could’ve gone worse. Benrey only tried to throw themself out of the plane twice and Harold and Toast almost got into one boxing match. (that Ghost and Bubby had to work together to stop.) Tommy got to talk to Ghost and Toast about their show a bit aswell and Gordon got a much needed nap. Overall it was pretty nice.

The plane lands a few towns away from “Little Butts” North Carolina. A van picks them all up, the man inside is apparently another member of the Paranormal team, his name or hopefully nickname is apparently Colon. Nobody elaborates on why that’s his name. Colon wears a bright blue beanie and a hoodie with some sort of vest covering it, the vest has multiple pockets and bags attached, it looks almost like he’s about to go to war or a hiking trip.

Gordon gets jammed into the seat in the far back with Benrey and Tommy. Everyone in the other seats seem to be having a conversation about something. Tommy seems to be trying to take a nap, and Benry is unnaturally quiet. He isn’t even playing on his DS or other electronics he insisted on bringing. Gordon almost asks him what’s wrong but is cut off but sudden crashes of thunder. They must be getting close he guesses.

Gordon looks out the window to find buildings destroyed and cars driving away from where they’re heading. He’s distantly reminded of those scenes in every kaiju movie where the main character runs the opposite way than everyone else for something important. Gordon hopes this is just as important. Then again, he doesn’t really want to end up like in Godzilla 2014 and see a loved one die.

He can hear that the others have gone quiet now, looking out their windows now. He can almost feel the fear and worry radiating off them. Tommy is awake now, the crashes must’ve woke him. Gordon leans forward to try and see what's ahead of them. It looks like a large tornado mixed with an aurora borealis. Thunder erupts from it and from the surrounding clouds. Gordon see’s them pass the “welcome to Little Butts!” sign which would be funny if it weren’t for what they’re approaching. He can see the movements of people near the wild storm and within the closely grouped town that surrounds it. Gordon assumes it’s the clones. He shivers and looks away, deciding this was probably a horrible idea. This is just like the Cascade, if not worse.

He’s shaking now. He can’t do this all over again. Why did he ever agree to this? He feels a hand on his shoulder and finds Benry, who is giving him a worried look. “Hey, man, bro it’s okay.” He says to Gordon, clearly still not used to the whole being comforting thing. “You got the Science Team and friends with you, uh, man. We’re gonna be okay” Benrey continues, Gordon smiles a little, still shaking a bit.

Gordon looks back to the front seats now, everyone else seems to be talking again. 

“So Spooker and I were huddled up in H.Q but he said he’s moved to the bunker now, so we should head there” Colon tells the group, well he seems to mostly be talking to Ghost.

“So we still have no idea who started this?” Ghost asks.

“Whoever they are, I'd like to kick their ass!” Bubby states, followed by Coomer saying “oh I would love to do some ass kicking on this fine day!”

Colon decides to just ignore the old men “Well Spooker said he has an idea of who it might be, but says he’ll explain when we get there.”

“If we even get there!” Bubby exclaims, “hey, I think Mr. Ghostie is a good driver, he’ll get us there just fine” Tommy replies.

“He’s almost crashed like 10 times!”

“I used to be an Uber driver, y’know” Colon mentions.

“I can see why you stopped!” Bubby shouts.

“Do you guys ever shut up??” Ghost yells into the backseat.

“Unfortunately no, they don’t” Gordon calls up from the back. Ghost groans and shakes his head, Toast laughs in response.

The group falls back into their banter, successfully distracting Gordon from the literal apocalypse going on around the car. 

The van drives off the main road they were on to cross into a wooded area, a bit less damaged by the chaos unfolding around it. The dirt road is horribly bumpy and raises several complaints from both the P.I.E team and Science Team alike. They turn off the road to a small overgrown driveway, somehow less bumpy than the main road. The driveway passes a bend around a small pond and ends at a… shed? A metal shed looking thing with the door broken off, inside there's a door on the ground, presumably leading down into the “bunker” mentioned by Colon earlier. On the side of the shed is the P.I.E logo spray painted messily. Colon parks the van outside of the shed, leaning over to look at the backseats he exclaims “we’re here!”

Everyone collectively falls over eachother to get out of the car, once stumbling out they stare at the shed leading to the bunker.

“looks like shit.” Benry states.

“Tell me about it” Ghost sighs and leads the group to the shed, knocking on it. A new voice calls from the inside “Ghost, you gotta use the secret knock!!”

“Spooker, I told you I’m not going to do your stupid knock! Just open the door!” Ghost shouts at the door.

“Not! Until! You! Do! The! Knock!” Spooker replies.

“Spooker.”

There's silence then the door opens, Ghost mumbles something resembling “thanks”

Ghost heads inside and lets the others follow, Gordon heads down last right behind Benrey. The inside of the bunker looks like a large basement with concrete walls and floor. There's a wall covered with a bunch of computer screens and other electronics, some of the screens appear to be live feeds of what's going on in town. There's a desk in front of the wall with many pieces of paper covering it with hastily written notes on them. The other side of the room has multiple beds that look like they belong in a prison, with a rusty frame and very uncomfortable looking mattresses, there's no blankets or pillows on them either. If Gordon had a choice he’d rather sleep on the floor. There's multiple other door ways that Gordon can’t really see the inside of.

The new person, named Spooker apparently, greets the Science Team members, he seems excited to meet new people. He’s wearing about the same thing as Colon other than his beanie being pink instead. 

“Hey, so you guys are like the science guys right? You’re like um, Bill Nye! Y’know cause he’s the science guy..” Spooker laughs nervously.

“Oh yes! Bill Nye was a close friend of mine until the incident.. Such a shame!” Harold replies cheerfully.

“I miss Bill Nye..” Tommy shakes his head sorrowfully.

“I don’t!” Harold responds.

There's a pause and then Colon speaks up, looking at Spooker “so you said you have an idea about who’s causing all this?”

Spooker perks up from the confusion caused by the Science Team and turns to Colon “yeah! Uh, come with me i’ll show you!” Spooker heads over to the wall of fire hazards and types on a keyboard while waiting for the others to join him. It’s kinda crowded and Gordon notices how Ghost stays behind, looking even more grumpy than earlier. He thinks about saying something to him but decides not to once he sees that Toast has noticed too, this isn’t his problem, he doesn't even know these people, really. Spooker pulls up an image on one of the computer monitors and points to it.

The screen shows something that must’ve happened before this even started, there's a person with their back turned to the camera, they seem to be wearing a very similar hoodie to Ghost, but the hood is down and they have no bag. In front of the person is a portal opening, a giant tear splitting into the sky. Spooker lets the video feed play, the person looks up at the portal and watches it open, lighting cracks out of the portal, hitting the camera and the feed goes back.  
Spooker turns around, “so, yeah!”

\- - - - -

Ghost stares at the monitor, frozen in place. That can’t be right. He was over in New Mexico with Toast at the time. Right? He backs up just as Spooker turns around and says something. He tries to clear his thoughts to gather what they’re saying.

“So Johnny Ghost is the motherfucker that fucked all this shit up?” Bubby asks, crossing his arms. Spooker is about to say something in reply but gets cut off.

“I can’t believe Ghast would betray us like this!” Harold shouts.

Gordon attempts to get the others’ attention “guys there's no way this person can be Ghost, at the time he was like, fighting a demon above my apartment, which as you know is VERY far away from here.”

Spooker nods “so i’m sure this person isn’t Ghost, so who else looks alot like Ghost and dresses like him?”

“Oh, I love guessing games!” Coomer smiles.

“I know! It’s gotta be uhh, my third cousin Simon!” Tommy suggests.

Spooker shakes his head “no- guys I know who this person is already-”

“Tommy, why on earth would your cousin be in “Little Butts” North Carolina?” Bubby asks.

“Anyone can go where they choose.” Benry says.

The group continues to just say things and not let Spooker speak at all. Ghost decides he’s had enough and steps toward the crowd, getting ready to yell. 

“Hey!” he begins. Nobody listens. “Hey, let Spooker talk!” he shouts again but is overpowered by the Science Team still, Gordon notices his yelling and gives him a sympathetic look, clearly he’s dealt with this before.

He inhales then yells louder “SHUT UP AND LET SPOOKER SPEAK!”  
This finally causes the Science Team to quiet down other than some sort of snarky remark by Bubby. After a pause of surprise from Spooker he begins talking again.

“Okay so I’m pretty sure this person is this guy me, Colon, and Toast met like three years ago or something. He was an absolute loser but he was pretending to be Ghost to get us to join his “team”.”

“Oh yeah! I remember that guy. Didn’t you say you met him again a while later?” Colon replies.

Spooker nods “yeah, he pretended to be Ghost again. I really should’ve known he wasn’t Ghost that time though…. Okay I'm getting off topic. So this guy, his name is Johnny Cranky-” Gordon mumbles something about there being too many people named Johnny “-and he like disappeared after my second encounter with him, so I think he’s finally back now for revenge.” Spooker finishes.

there's a pause then people start saying things about the theory sounding reasonable. 

“What about the clones though? What would they have to do with Johnny Cranky?” Toast asks, which is met with a shrug from Spooker.

Ghost had heard about this guy before, Spooker had told him about him. Ghost decided not to think much of it based on the fact this “Cranky” guy didn’t seem to be very good at being a threat. But if Spooker was right then he had really become a threat. As long as they could figure out how to get rid of the portal which seems to be causing the storm it shouldn’t be that hard to stop, right?

Ghost looks up at Toast “maybe this guy just found the clones easy to control and make and decided to use them as his army” he suggests.

“Brilliant idea, sir” Toast smiles.

Ghost looks over at the rest of the group “we should find a way to close this portal then begin our attack. This shouldn’t be too hard depending on how good you all are in a fight.”

“Fear not, Ghoulie! We are very skilled in the art of war!” Harold shouts.

Ghost nods “so most of you are scientists right? Then you guys can help figure out how to close this portal and save the world or something like that.”


	3. The Potion Maker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyones favorite characters are here now

Darnold really did not expect The Twister would be THIS loud up close. Lightning strikes far too close for comfort as he flies toward the center of the storm. He knew these rocket boots left over from the cybernetics department would come in handy eventually. Another thing that comes in handy for more reasons than a horrible murder storm is potions. Ever since the Cascade and when he had helped Gordon Freeman with a potion Darnolds been trying to help more people with them. 

It’s a lot harder to make potions now that Black Mesa is gone. It’s hard to find the right supplies and it’s also pretty expensive, but he does his best with what he can get. He had helped a lot of people in the last four months, even if it was mostly small things it still felt good to help. Just a day or two ago he heard of this large storm ripping apart an entire city and decided he could probably make a potion that could get rid of it. The storm wasn’t exactly what he was expecting.

More lightning crashes nearby, almost making him drop his barrel holding a new potion that would hopefully put a stop to all this. The winds start to get harsher as he goes further in. Pretty soon he should be getting into the center, then he can pour the potion in and get out FAST.

The sky around Darnold turns brighter with more colors, the wind picks up faster, more lightning strikes, flashing the sky in bright white. He’s very close now.

The sky clears up finally, he’s in the center. But of course, like everything else, this wasn’t like what he expected either. It’s incredibly dark in contrast to the brightness of the storm around it. The only thing lighting the area up is the surrounding lightning. Darnold can make out some sort of silhouette of a large structure, sort of resembling a Daddy Long Legs. Long legs made of wood and metal stick into the ground, moving along with the storm, as if controlling or being controlled by the tornado. Something or someone stands on the body piece, their back turned to Darnold. They’re standing eerily still.

“Uh, hello?” Darnold yells up to the person. Darnold really hopes this person is just trapped here and not like, controlling the storm or anything. Then his potion would be rendered completely useless. 

Lightning strikes again and Darnold can now see that they’re definitely a person. They’re wearing a grey hoodie, their hood is up and they do not respond to Darnold. 

“Hello? Can you hear me? Are you trapped in here?” Darnold calls up again, a bit louder. The person freezes up, then turns around slowly to look at Darnold. Theri face is mostly shadowed by the hood and the general darkness of the area, but their eyes glow, one eye is blue and the other yellow. They look surprised at first, then their face twists into a glare and they turn around completely to face Darnold.

Darnold backs up in air, getting way too close to the storm. “Oh- uh- okay I can see you do not want me here so i’ll be leaving-” the barrel of potion starts to slip from his hands.

The person's eyes lock onto the barrel and look back to Darnold. Still glaring. Darnold’s really starting to wish he prepared more for different scenarios.

Lightning begins to strike closer to Darnold, almost knocking him out of the air and making him drop the potion. He mumbles a curse and he tries to stabilize himself again, but before he could the storm starts to grow larger, sucking him back inside. The person starts to laugh, not a normal laugh though, instead of “hahahaha” it sounds like “oh ho ho ho” which Darnold would find funny if it weren’t for the fact he is about to be thrown back into a storm that might end up killing him.

Color surrounds him as he gets swept back into the storm. All he can hear is the person’s laugh, the crash of thunder, and the blowing wind as he gets thrown around in the madness.

*  
*  
*

Benrey sits around while everyone else works on some science stuff connected to the “storm” in town right now. He sits on one of the bunker’s old shitty beds and plays Godzilla Unleashed Double Smash on his DS, attempting to ignore the others. He’d rather not think about the “storm” right now, he’s already thought about it enough.

A few times they think the others are trying to get their attention but he just ignores them. Nope., there isn’t a super storm that may or may not be alive in town right now, what are you talking about? He finds himself playing the whole story mode again, still trying to ignore the others, but the more he tries to ignore them the more he focuses on what they’re talking about.

He glances up at them, they must’ve gotten a bunch of science stuff out of another room or something, cause there's now tables covered in a bunch of stuff Benry doesn’t really know how to describe further than “science stuff”. They’re arguing about something.

“Tornados can’t be fucking alive- WHAT are you talking about??” Gordon shouts at Ghost.

“It’s paranormal, it just takes the form of a tornado.” Ghost replies, keeping his voice steady despite how angry he looks.

“Well if the tornado is alive why can’t we just fight it with our weapons and fists?” Harold asks.

“We’ve tried that before! Many times! It’s too powerful. We need to find a better way to stop it” Ghost answers.

“But like you mentioned earlier you have no god damn idea where this thing came from so you have no idea WHAT would work to stop it!” Bubby argues.

The argument goes down into suggesting different types of weaponry that won’t work. Benrey looks back down to try and ignore them again. He’s starting to get bored with the game. He really wishes he brought more games to play. The distraction causes Benry to let one of his monsters die on accident. He sighs and attempts to keep going. Getting closer to the final level again. Then one of his monsters dies again, he’s getting real close to a game over now. The arguing gets louder now and Benry looks up again.

“Toast remember what happened last time you tried to nuke it!?” Ghost yells at his partner.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea! Nothing can survive a bunch of nukes being dropped!” Harold says.

“How are WE supposed to survive the nukes?? And what about any survivors? I don’t want more innocent blood on my hands!” Gordon shouts back.

Ghost nods at Gordon and turns to Coomer “and like we said we have no idea where this thing came from, it probably can survive as many nukes as we throw at it. It has actually survived a nuke before!”

Benrey flips the screen down on their DS and sets it down next to them on the mattress. He stands up and goes over to the others. Clearly they’re going nowhere and need some help. Can’t even fight the tornado thing on their own. When he gets to the table they’re standing at they look over at him, falling quiet. Benry almost feels too nervous to talk now that he has all these eyes on him.

“Yo.” is all he says.

“Hey, Benry. What do you want” Gordon sighs, his angry expression falling now. 

“I know what the tornado thing you guys are talking about is” he smacks his lips “I know where ’s from too.”

*  
*  
*

Darnold finds himself being shaken awake somewhere dark. He can’t really make you who's shaking him or where he is because 1. It’s dark and 2. He still has his goggles on. He’s also in a lot of pain.

“Hello? Can you hear me? Hellooo?” the person shaking him talks directly into Darnolds face, they have a lisp.

Darnold doesn’t move at first, trying to figure out what’s going on still. The person shakes him harder.

Darnold attempts to move out of their grasp “I'm awake you can stop shaking me now!”

The person lets go of Darnold and lets him fall back to the floor “about time.”

Darnold sits up and takes his goggles off finally. His eyes adjust to the darkness now and he can see the person and the surrounding area they’re in. The person in front of him has messy orange hair, hazel eyes under dirty glasses that seriously need to be wiped off, and wears a green hoodie, which is also very dirty. Did this kid just fall into a mud puddle or something? 

“Uh, hello?” Darnold asks.

“Yes. hi. You should get up, I’m sure you’ve noticed the “storm” and we have to get moving before it gets right on top of us.” They reply, turning away from Darnold and walking to a door in whatever building they’re in. They wait for Darnold at the door.  
Darnold stands up and follows behind.

“So, who are you?” Darnold asks.

“Who am I?” the person laughs, “I'm The Mighty Spence. Everybody knows me. I’m as well known as Han Solo. You can just call me Spencer though.” Spencer replies, leading Darnold outside.

Darnold nods in response “I’m Darnold. I’m guessing you saved my life after that fall earlier?” 

“What? No, I just found you lying in that house. Almost thought you were another dead body.” 

Darnold doesn’t respond to that, instead he takes a look at their surroundings. They seem to be in what used to be a neighborhood, now destroyed. Few of the houses still seem to be intact. Most are caved in or are nothing left but a floor. The sky is dark and smoky. Many surrounding trees are ablaze and the ground and air is filled with ash. Darnold shudders. 

“So where are we going?” Darnold asks.

“Further away from the destruction. I have an idea of how to destroy it.” Spencer responds.

“How?”

“I’ll tell you when we get where we need to be.” 

The two fall into silence as they make their way through the rubble and fire. Darnold doesn’t spot any survivors on their trek through the area. Spencer stays quiet as they walk, seemingly lost in thought, so Darnold keeps quiet too. The further away from the original spot Darnold was found at the less destroyed the area seems, Darnold thinks he can see a bit of sun peak through the clouds a few times. 

Darnold takes a risk and turns around, finding the twisting storm still high above him, it’s miles away but still feels right on top of him. He quickly turns around and continues following the other.

Spencer eventually stops his walk at an un-destroyed house, almost completely out of town. The surrounding area is all fields and trees. 

“Alright here we are.” Spencer stops in front of the front door to the house and turns back to look at Darnold. “You ready to hear my amazing plan to take this thing down for good?”

Darnold nods “sure am.”


End file.
